Swamiji on offering every action to God. With no thought of ‘a return’.
Swamiji continues a thought from audio post 122-6 in which he discussed why the guru [spiritual preceptor] intentionally praises someone. Here Swamiji says, one chela [disciple] might think, 'Why is the guru praising that other fellow all the time? Why not praising me?'
For what? says Swamiji? You are natural. He says that in the western sense, it's possibly mistaken, and one might think it's 'being taken for granted'. But, puns Swamiji, in the Guru and chela relationship, there's no 'grant'. 😉 You do or you don't do – and that's all there is to it.
Swamiji comes back to types of prayer. In one type, you slavishly beg. In prayer, there is also the 'lovingly ask' method, and in the heroic approach to prayer, there will be demands.
It depends on your relationship with God. As you have relationships with human beings around you, just like that, you'll have a relationship with God. If you're down and crawling and asking people for favours, when you get into your shrine you'll do exactly the same. You'll crawl to God and ask for favours. You must watch your own attitude.
Swamiji explains how different approaches and attitudes translate from our human interactions, to our interaction with God. Swamiji says that a child may be independent, but when it wants something specific it will go to the parent and demand it. Because the parent is its very own.
In prayer, the best approach will be: Ask nothing. That's the best prayer. Knowing that God will deliver for us, what is best for our spiritual evolution in this life. And the key is that we must be happy with whatever that is. Which is why Sri Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, 'O Arjuna, whatever you do, do it for me.' You eat, offer it to me. If you work, offer it to me. All as a self-sacrifice.
Why self-sacrifice? Energy and life and time is very valuable to ordinary man. And if you can give that energy, life and time to God, isn't that self-sacrifice? Then Lord Krishna added, 'I shall look after you, I shall protect you.' Swamiji says take care that you don't become a jellyfish here. Krishna Bhagavan didn't say, 'Leave everything for me to do for you.' He didn't say that. He said, 'Whatever YOU do… do it for me. Whatever action it is, just do it for me.'
'Self-surrender' doesn't mean we just sit down and leave everything to God. Never! Whatever strength you have in you, is his grace. So you must use that grace to get more grace. And what is grace? A kind of mysterious divine power of God. That is grace. Which, when used, will strengthen you further. In what? In anything that you want to do. But the greatest is that you'll use it in such a way, that it'll strengthen your spiritual life.
The ultimate grace will be God himself. God is the embodiment of grace. And God and grace can never be separated. Just like the power and the possessor of the power. Remove the power, where's the possessor?
Swamiji concludes by saying, 'You surrender in this way. To pray is not your own strength. It's divine strength.'
To listen to these wise words, please click on the link below. Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
Duration: 07:54
Click here for the Flipbook version of: → Swamiji's biography
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However, if you'd prefer a straight-up PDF version, please click HERE.
Dear Devotee, if we use the term 'He or he', when referring to Swamiji, it's not impolite or disrespectful. It's to minimise the repetitiveness of saying or writing 'Swamiji' too many times.
The original audio recordings of these posts were made by close Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa and Swami Shivapadananda devotee, Mother Radha. The audio editing and noise reduction of the original 1970s-onwards tapes, has been lovingly engineered, over many years, by her son and our dear gurubhai, Brother Tim. May Sri Ramakrishna and Swamiji bless them both.
Admin tip: Underlined words are links. If you click on them, they'll take you to an explanation of the particular word or term. [In these overviews, Admin comments are typically in a smaller green font, and square bracketed, like this statement.]
Dear reader, if you spot typos or other errors, please feel free to email the site admin on info@imbizo.com with your suggested correction/s.
Context: As always, care should be taken to remember that what Swamiji was saying, was often very specific to the needs of people with him at the time. Please bear this in mind.
Links to our Guru Parampara (spiritual lineage) organisations, which will broaden your knowledge base: Ramakrishna Math and Mission and our alma maters, the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa and the Sri Sarada Devi Ashram in Durban. The Ramakrishna Centre of Johannesburg is also active in Gauteng province in South Africa.
There are various publications [The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna etc.] which you can download at no charge, from the Ramakrishna Centre of SA website page, HERE.
The image in this post is crafted from prompts to Microsoft Copilot AI – Artificial Intelligence.